Scholarships For Cs Make Sense

High school grades are one way - but not a perfect way or the only way - to measure intelligence or predict whether a student might do well in higher education.

Sometimes, even smart children get only average grades for reasons unrelated to their true intelligence or learning potential.

Unfortunately, low grades are often a roadblock to higher education. While "A" and "B" students can get scholarships, others rarely qualify, meaning they and their parents face the increasingly unaffordable challenge of paying full tuition.

To open education doors wider, Fort Lauderdale millionaire Edward Seese, who died March 21 at age 86, bequeathed $4.5 million in scholarship money to Broward Community College. The money will go to students who got "C" grades in high school, but are "industrious persons who show promise."Students with high grades can qualify too if not enough "C" students apply.

Tuition at BCC runs about $2,000 a year. With state matching funding boosting the total to $8.5 million, about 250 students a year can qualify. The money - the largest grant in the school's history - will go to the nonprofit BCC Foundation.

Seese wrote that C students should get preference for the scholarships he is funding because "they are often capable of greater accomplishments when relieved from the problems of outside employment while attending school."

Seese was no underachiever. He was an "A" student who left a $15 million estate.

What a wonderful legacy for Seese to leave behind. His generosity and his concern will give thousands of young people a helping hand to erase the stain of being "average" or "mediocre" and replace it with the polished sheen of scholastic achievement.